


leading the blind

by Aramley



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-13
Updated: 2010-12-13
Packaged: 2017-12-17 20:03:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/871444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aramley/pseuds/Aramley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unabashed fluff in which Novak and Rafa are both idiots.</p>
            </blockquote>





	leading the blind

**Author's Note:**

> Set after their round robin match in the 2010 World Tour Finals, during which Novak had a contact lens malfunction and played most of the match half-blind. Unsurprisingly, he lost.

Even with the offending contact removed and his glasses on, Novak's eye is still bloodshot and red-rimmed almost as though, if Rafa didn't know better, he'd been crying - he keeps reaching up to worry at it some more under the frame of his glasses, until Rafa reaches over and curls his fingers around Novak's wrist.

"Stop," he says, gently. Novak tugs out of his grasp.

"It's fine," he says, irritable. "Leave me alone."

"Okay," Rafa says, drawing back peaceably. "But is no need for be angry with me, no?"

"You are such an _asshole_ ," Novak tells him, not in the affectionate laughing way he usually does, but meaning it. "Will you just - forget it," he finishes, standing up abruptly.

"Nole," Rafa starts.

"Yeah, listen, I'm tired," Novak says. He reaches up to rub the eye again, then catches himself and stops; a frustrated, abortive movement. "I'm going to bed, okay? I'll call you tomorrow."

"Nole," Rafa tries again, but Novak is already brushing past, almost tripping over Rafa's feet as he goes.

"You can let yourself out, right?" says Novak, before he disappears into the bedroom. The door clicks shut behind him.

-

In the hall outside, Rafa meets Djordje.

"Is he okay?" Djordje asks, with a barely-concealed hint of antagonism to it, unwilling to forgive Rafa the fact that he just beat Djordje's big brother.

Rafa shrugs. "He gonna be," he says.

There is maybe just a hint of teenage smugness when Djordje says, "He kick you out?"

Rafa is not exactly in the mood. "Tell him I call tomorrow," he says, and side-steps Djordje to get back to his own room.

"Hey," Djordje says, behind him. Rafa turns. Djordje shrugs, and says, "You know he's just disappointed. He play really good, first set. And then the eye, and you were all," Djordje makes a heavily scowling face that is apparently meant to approximate Rafa's. "You know?"

Maybe it's the language barrier, maybe it's the age barrier. Rafa has no clue. Still, he says, "Sure. I know. Tell him I call tomorrow."

Djordje shrugs again. "I'll tell him."

-

Rafa wakes sharply to the vibration and shrill chirping of his phone on the bedside table, next to the hotel clock whose vivid red numbers tell him that it's barely two in the morning. Rafa makes a dying noise and grabs the phone, and swears when he sees Novak's number on the screen.

"Is two in morning," Rafa says, when he picks up, his English hobbled by exhaustion and semi-consciousness. "What - what - "

"Yeah," Novak says. "Sorry, I just - hey, I'm outside, can I come in?"

"I gonna kill you," Rafa promises, thumbing the phone's off-button as he crawls out of bed. He nearly trips over his racket bag in the darkness, and he definitely stubs his toe against something - possibly a wall.

"I gonna kill you," Rafa says, opening the hotel room door to find Novak there, barefoot in sweatpants and a practice tee and his glasses.

Novak smiles with one corner of his mouth. "Can I come in?"

"Sure," Rafa says, stepping aside to let Novak pass, "but I am going back to sleep."

He deliberately doesn't make it an invitation, and he deliberately doesn't switch on any of the lights as he stumbles half-blind back to bed and collapses face-down into it. He feels rather than sees Novak settle next to him, and he feels through his closed eyelids the sudden flare of harsh light when Novak switches on the bedside lamp.

" _Hijo de puta_ ," Rafa says, opening one eye. "What is wrong with you?"

"I'm sorry, okay?" Novak says. The lamplight glints off his glasses. "I mean, for being an ass before, and for the match -"

"Oh, my God," Rafa says, and shoves himself up on both elbows. "You are serious? Is two in the morning."

"I'm just _saying_ ," Novak protests. "You know, it was a good match, and then - "

"Nole," says Rafa, kneeling now so that he's face to face with Novak leaning against the headboard, his face serious in those glasses that drive Rafa crazy. "I no care."

"Yeah, well, I care," Novak says, that sharp note of irritation creeping into his voice again. " _I_ care, okay? I was playing amazing and then suddenly I'm _blind_ and you're over there pacing and huffing and -"

Rafa could strangle him or kiss him, and it's less effort to kiss him. Novak resists for all of three seconds before he melts into it, relenting, becoming warmly pliant and pliable under Rafa's hands, so that Rafa can drag him down until they're lying together, Rafa's hands fisted in the soft worn fabric of Novak's t-shirt, which he suspects of being _his_ t-shirt, long-lost.

"You're just trying to shut me up," Novak says, but since he says it against Rafa's pulse-point, unshaven and deliberately scratchy, Rafa suspects he's not that pissed about it.

"Smart guy," Rafa says, and steals Novak's glasses. He leans across Novak's chest to drop the glasses on the table and reach the lamp, pinning Novak in place while he switches the light off and shifts his weight a little to keep from entirely crushing Novak. Novak makes a token noise of complaint and shifts a little more to get comfortable, but they stay tangled together.

"I was not angry," Rafa says, after a couple of Novak's lulling heartbeats have gone by. "Djordje say I am -" he makes the face in the dark before he realises that Novak can't see it, and substitutes instead, "- frowny."

"You're always frowny on court," Novak says, in a voice somewhat slurred by encroaching sleep.

"I was not angry," Rafa repeats, against Novak's chest.

"Yeah, me neither," Novak says. He strokes a hand through Rafa's hair. "Just, you know, disappointed. It's a shitty reason to lose for, you know? I was gonna give you a match. I wanted to beat you."

"Beat me Saturday," Rafa says. "Hm, I mean. Try."

"You are such an asshole," Novak tells him, sleepily, and this time Rafa smiles.


End file.
